


Whose Safety First Provide for? Thine

by Island_of_Reil



Series: Unrequited [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Loyalty, Protectiveness, Sexual Fantasy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 15:24:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1904058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>I can keep you alive, so long as I'm alive too. And as long as I'm alive, I can hope.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whose Safety First Provide for? Thine

**Author's Note:**

> [Kinkmeme prompt.](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/13546.html?thread=8449002#cmt8449002)
> 
> The fic title comes from [Byron’s “Love and Death.”](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179288)

You’re going to be the death of me.

One of your pet titans is going to bite off my head while I’m trying to pull you out of the range of his teeth. Or you’ll pour the wrong thing into a beaker, “just to see what happens,” and three seconds later you and I will be nothing but red and grey bits dripping off the ceiling.

You’ve got enough courage for the entire Corps. I wish you’d temper it with a little caution.

You know that Erwin’s as good as dead. So long as we can keep our necks out of the noose, the bolo will be around yours soon. No longer _Taichou_ , but _Danchou_. Responsible for many more than a handful of grown-ass men and women who’ve cheated death a thousand times between us. Responsible for everybody. Including the kids.

To be fair, you’re amazing with the kids. Eren might idolize Levi, but, other than his brainy little friend, you’re the only one who turns on the lights behind his eyes and makes the gears spin in his head. If both of you live long enough, maybe you can teach him how to channel all that rage off the battlefield as well as on it. It was a weight off my heart when you figured it out for yourself. I can save you from anything nowadays, but I couldn’t have saved you from eating yourself alive with vitriol.

Sometimes I look at you and think, _You’d be amazing with_ our _kids._ Then I catch myself, and I have to choke back the bitter laughter. Like any of us have any business creating more human beings. For what? To be left parentless and scratching in the dirt of the reclamation camps until the age of twelve? Then to train for three years only to become titan food themselves?

And, after all, it’s not like you’ve ever given me the slightest of hints. I’d like to think it’s because your only love is your work, but I know you’ve slept with Levi before, even if that was purely physical. And Petra too, which was more than purely physical. One of the worst things about losing her was how guilty I felt for having resented her. She’s dead, I’m alive, but she had you, and I never have.

I probably never will, whether titans chew both of us up and spit us out in the next year, or both of us live to a ripe old age. I’ll probably never get to see your hair spilling down over the sides of your breasts and feel the ends of it tickling my chest. I’ll probably never get to see your eyes go glassy with something other than battle rage or scientific wonder. I’ll probably never get to take out my sketchpad and draw you lying across my bed, naked and satiated — the real naked you, scars and bruises and moles and all, much more interesting than the perfect naked _Taichou_ of my fantasies. I’ll probably never get to scold you for leaving your folded glasses facedown on my night table instead of tucking them into their case.

But I can keep you alive, so long as I’m alive too. And as long as I’m alive, I can hope.


End file.
